RAVING AGAINST THE RHETORIC

News flash: Youth who attend raves aren't necessarily drug-crazed,
sexual deviant insomniacs. Honest, they're not.

That was the predominant tune at a recent panel discussion inside
Salt Lake City Council chambers attended by parents, rave promoters,
disc jockeys and young ravers themselves. Call it an organized
attempt to dispel the ongoing bad rash of media hype and
law-enforcement sensationalism that's quickly branded late-night rave
dance parties as bacchanalian drug havens, followed by
massage-induced orgies.

Eight rave enthusiasts shot that image down. Each had a separate
rhythm and volume level. Some spoke with so much earnest emotion, in
fact, that the discussion almost evolved into feel-good rally of
raving proportions.

"The message we've all heard lately is that if your kids go to raves
they must be bad people. We all know that's not true," said a
barefoot Amanda Bushnell, a coordinator with the Intermountain Harm
Reduction Project. "Raves are about people more than drugs. I
remember that at the first one I went to someone bumped into me,
stopped to apologize, and then we had a five-minute conversation.
It's a social atmosphere you don't get anywhere else."

Kade "Troah" Gibb, an 18-year-old restaurant worker, painted a
picture of the rave scene with almost Utopian strokes. "For me, a
rave is one of the few places I feel openly accepted, loved and
appreciated," he said. "I've finally found the place I wanted."

Other panelists remarked that a place as conservative as the Salt
Lake Valley simply doesn't know what to make of all-night dance
sessions hosted in warehouses with lights, booming sound systems and
an open sense of camaraderie. So, naturally, it gets demonized. It's
not that raves don't occasionally involve people on drugs. They do,
panelists admitted. But, they pointed out, drugs are far too
pervasive in society to be the sole domain of a rave. Like a rock
concert of the '60s or the soda stand of the '50s, a rave is a
cultural phenomenon centered around self-expression and social
interaction.

That's a tough sale for many in law enforcement who patrol on weekend
nights looking to shut down raves, which they see as traveling drug
caravans of free-form massaging and open debauchery. As little as six
months ago the city's daily newspapers focussed on methamphetamine as
the latest drug plague. Now the enemies are rave and club drugs such
as ecstasy and nitrous oxide "whippets."

The rhetoric has grown increasingly alarmist, with everyone from
school administrators to LDS church President Gordon B. Hinckley
weighing in on the subject. Skyline High School recently prohibited
the wearing of rave bead necklaces and other paraphernalia. After a
Salt Lake County sheriff's undercover detective made the incredible
claim to Skyline students that one in three high school students take
ecstasy, the school's student council went into panic mode,
establishing a new anti-drug campaign to fetter out so-called
"drug-using" students. Presumably, that means anyone wearing rave
beads. Long before that, at the LDS church general conference last
fall, Hinckley vilified raves as sinful drug dens that lead nowhere.

Enough already, said panelists. If the media and law enforcement
insist on labeling raves as drug markets, it's little surprise that
youth go to raves looking for drugs and sex. Even some parents in the
audience felt that raves are unfairly maligned. "I think the Salt
Lake City police are the chief disseminators of misinformation. To
say that your kid's on drugs if you see him wearing rave beads is
false," said Ilene Done, a mother of one of the panelists. "Drugs are
out there whether they're inside or outside of raves. If we're
diligent parents, our kids will take appropriate action when it comes
to drugs."

And if they don't, law enforcement's ready to strike. At the federal
level, there's talk of using the same anti-drug law aimed at crack
houses to thwart the use of ecstasy. That means night club owners and
rave promoters might be prosecuted even if, unbeknownst to them,
ravers in attendance were selling or buying drugs. Locally, Salt Lake
County Deputy District Attorney Sirena M. Wissler said her office has
employed undercover officers at raves=F3even at the panel discussion,
there were rumors of two vice officers sitting in the audience=F3and
will vigorously prosecute ecstasy dealers. "We're not out to stop
raves. We're out to stop drug use," Wissler said.

No wonder the valley's ravers and warehouse revelers feel urged to
mount a public relations offensive. Show respect for security and
police officers who might show up to raves uninvited, they told all
in attendance. There were admonitions against drug use and for open
communication between parents and children. The future might even
hold an invitational rave for members of the media, concerned parents
and anyone else who dares judge without prior experience. Gibb, for
one, sounded ready to host.

"I'd love to see Hinckley at a rave," said Gibb.

Luciano Colonna Intermountain Harm Reduction Project
455 East 400 South Suite 208 Salt Lake City, UT 84111
tel: 801.355.0234 fax: 801.355.0291
lcolonna@ihrproject.org